


Bringing the Party to You

by AnonEhouse



Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-18
Updated: 2012-07-18
Packaged: 2017-11-10 06:28:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/463221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnonEhouse/pseuds/AnonEhouse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An Avengerkink fill- another author filled it first, and then I was tempted to have a go at it.</p><p>I condensed the prompt, cuz it was long. Avengers move in on Tony & have lot of social activities which he's too busy to attend. After a while they stop inviting him. He finally gets free time, but when the day goes on with no one mentioning anything, he assumes there's nothing happening. Then he walks in on them having a party. <a href="http://avengerkink.livejournal.com/7293.html?thread=13430397#t13430397"> Prompt is here.</a></p><p>I <i>attempted</i> serious/angst, but wound up with miffed Tony/no one really upset, humor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bringing the Party to You

(If you are reading this on any PAY site this is a STOLEN WORK, the author has NOT Given Permission for it to be here. If you're paying to read it, you're being cheated too because you can read it on Archiveofourown for FREE.)

 _Huh_ , Tony thought, empty coffee mug dangling from one hand as he followed the sound of music (not what he'd have chosen, some pop thing about puppies and teenage romance with broken hearts or maybe it was country music about trucks and broken hearts, he couldn't tell them apart) and laughter. Where the hell they'd got a game of Twister was beyond him, but yes, the resident Thunder God, a pair of assassins, a Super Soldier, and his sometimes irritable lab-partner were all squirming around entangled in each other's very personal spaces. The table and couch had playing cards and pieces of other games scattered about, along with bottles and glasses and mugs, and a collection of empty delivery boxes, including several from Tony's favorite pizza place. The party had obviously been going on for hours.

The thing about the Avengers was that he was the only one with a steady day job. Oh, Clint and Natasha _could_ be called for a mission at any moment, but so far Fury hadn't found them anything. Tony suspected even Fury had a heart- small, black and shriveled, no doubt- and was giving them time to grieve the loss of Coulson before assigning them a new handler. Bruce had a free hand to choose whatever he felt like working on and whatever hours he chose to do so. Tony really didn't want him to feel pressured after all he'd been through. Steve was getting his bearings- the man wasn't stupid, but culture shock isn't something you get over after watching a few PowerPoints hitting the highlights of seventy years of massive social and technological upheaval. So Fury wasn't on his case, either. And then there was Thor, who, hey, he had interdimensional diplomatic immunity, plus the emotional makeup of a very large dog- the kind that would run up to you with a slobbery tennis ball and be hurt if you didn't accept it. No one was going to tell him to buckle down while he was still avoiding thinking about his imprisoned little brother, the mass-murderer, by partying with his new buddies. 

Tony actually _liked_ to work, but lately he'd been swamped. He was the go-to guy for all the little techie wonders that Fury decided the team needed, and he couldn't let the Clean Energy Arc Reactor campaign (currently being called CLEAR in a not-quite acronym, but hey Pepper liked it) lose momentum so there were all those meetings and publicity functions (which weren't too bad if you didn't eat the chicken fricassee, never eat the chicken fricassee) and then there's the regular SI stuff involving the R &D department which has always been Tony's baby, and the Maria Stark Foundation had been hit with more than the usual requests in the aftermath of giant alien flying caterpillars noshing on the Big Apple, and... really, he'd barely had time for coffee let alone such luxuries as sit-down meals or enough sleep for... weeks... a month? He'd lost track of time.

"Hey. What's going on, guys?" His feelings weren't hurt, honestly. It's not their fault they didn't invite him, he'd been begging off all the invites to join in the fun, so it's only natural they didn't think of him. Even though he had finally cleared his schedule, and circled the day in red, on the retro, actual paper, calendar on the main fridge & wrote 'Tony's Day Off' on it yesterday. They probably hadn't seen it.

Now, Tony's not the greatest at interpersonal relationships, he'd always admit that, and sometimes, well, often, he misses social cues until hit over the head with 'shut up, Tony'. But sometimes, sometimes, it all comes crystal clear in an instant. Like now. The music was still playing, but the laughter stopped. Everyone was frozen in awkward, intimate, positions, and they were all looking at him. Like he was a stranger, someone butting in and spoiling the fun.

"We're just fooling around," Steve said, answering for the group, like the leader he is.

"Oh. I guess I missed the memo."

Bruce said, "Well, we didn't really plan it. You know, we were just sitting around and got bored."

Thor said with simple honesty, "I did not think this entertainment would be to your liking, or I should have called you to join us."

Tony nodded. "Yeah, I got that." They were still looking uncomfortable. You know what? Fuck it, he's Tony Stark, the life of the fucking party where ever he goes. He doesn't need to _join_ anything, especially not something so corny and stupid as a Twister party. "Have fun, kids." He left the room, ignoring the voices behind him.

 

"Well, that was awkward," Bruce said once Tony had left the room, trailing hurt feeling vibes about as subtly as Nyan cat trails a rainbow. He sighed. "I'll go talk to him."

"He's not a child," Steve said. "He could have joined in if he wanted to."

Natasha pillowed her head on her arms, looking comfortable despite being pretzeled around Clint and Steve at the same time. "This is Tony Stark. He's eminently childish. If someone doesn't go after him, I can guarantee he'll do something very, very stupid."

Clint nodded. His voice was muffled since Natasha was sitting on his chest. "He's probably singing 'Nobody loves me, everybody hates me, guess I'll go eat worms' right now. Next he'll pack up some PBJ's in a bandanna and run away from home."

Bruce sighed again and untangled himself. "I hate drama." He stood up and stretched and then followed the path Tony had taken.

Thor looked at each of them. "Ah. I understand. Loki was always wont to commit more mischief when he was not invited to join the group."

After a moment this sank in and everyone looked slightly panicked. "Tony's not going to become a supervillain just because we didn't invite him to play Twister," Steve said. But he didn't sound very sure of himself.

 

Bruce looked in the kitchen, but the coffee maker was off, and Tony wasn't in sight. He turned the coffee maker on so the smell could serve as bait, and then went down a level to Tony's lab. "Knock, knock," he said, peering in through the glass door, locked of course, at Tony being _very_ obviously _very_ busy with something he's pretty sure he recognized as scrap pieces of Iron Man armor from the recycling bin. 

"I don't like knock, knock jokes," Tony said. "In fact, I don't have a sense of humor. I can kill a party just by walking past."

Bruce leaned his head against the glass. "Tony, stop being a drama queen. C'mon out, I'll even order that horrible bacon and maple syrup pizza you like."

"It's not horrible, you just don't have the courage to try it." Tony doesn't look at Bruce, he's _very_ busy.

"Tony, let me in."

"I'm working."

"Fine, be that way. The coffee's in the kitchen whenever you get tired of sulking." 

 

Bruce returned to the others. "He's locked himself into his Mad Scientist Lair. Probably planning global domination. Are there any Chicken in a Biskits left?" Bruce sat on the couch and rummaged through the snack debris.

"No. Thor is here," Clint said, as if that explained the lack of snacks, which really, it did. "Ok, who's next at bat?" Everyone looked at him. "HEY! I didn't volunteer."

"It seems you did," Natasha said, looking at him as if she was counting all the vulnerable nerve bundles in his body.

"All right, all right. Can I shoot him? Just maybe in the arm?"

Everyone considered it for a moment, then Steve shook his head. "No. Pepper would be annoyed because then she'd have to forge his signature on everything."

"Instead of just most things," Clint said as he wriggled out from under Natasha who wasn't exactly helping, but he wasn't complaining, either. 

 

"TONY!" Clint pounded on the glass, but Tony had turned up his music to the point where the glass was trembling in sympathetic vibration, and probably couldn't hear him. Whatever he was working on had disturbingly sharp claws on the end of metal tentacles, and a big red button marked 'DO NOT PRESS' which.... never boded well. Clint climbed up into the vents, and dropped down inside the lab. He had to lean against the force of the music. Tony had his back to him.

"TONY!" Clint shouted before going over to the wall controls and hitting the override for the music so hard something snapped and went 'ping ping ping' across the floor in the sudden silence.

Tony turned to him. Clint really didn't like the look on his face. "Please don't turn down my music," he said.

And then Dummy turned the fire extinguisher on Clint.

 

Clint returned to the others, dripping CO2 foam. "Tony declined my invitation. The door is still locked. On the bright side, nothing in there can catch on fire at the moment."

"I will go and have words with the Man of Iron," Thor announced, lifting Mjolnir from where he'd been using it to flatten aluminum cans for recycling.

"Good luck," Bruce said around a mouthful of Wheat Thins. "Hey, anyone want to play Trivial Pursuit?"

"No," everyone answered.

"How about Operation?"

"Yeah, all right," Steve got the game out from the stack. "Hey, the broken heart is missing."

 

"Man of Iron," Thor said, "Your friends request your presence at our merry-making!"

Tony looked up from his gadget which now had what appeared to be billiard balls in stalks. "I don't have any friends. I am a rock. I am an IIIIIISLAND."

Thor frowned. "You are a Midgardian."

"Go away." Tony said. He tweaked something and the balls began revolving.

"Tony," Thor said, and gently tapped on the glass door with Mjolnir. The door shattered. Thor looked down at the mess. Then he looked up at Tony.

Tony looked at Thor. "Dummy. Kill."

Dummy waved the fire extinguisher and moved forward, bravely meeping.

 

Thor returned to the others, dripping CO2 foam. "The Man of Iron expresses his regrets, but he declines to attend our gathering."

Natasha sighed. "This is ridiculous."

"Are you going to go after Tony?" Steve asked, hopefully.

"I suppose so." Natasha got up and unzipped her catsuit, exposing more cleavage.

"That's... really not fair," Steve said.

"I know."

 

Natasha stepped in over the broken glass, stepped around the puddles of foam, and gave Dummy a look. Dummy whined, lowered the fire extinguisher and went to hide behind Tony's latest invention, which now had tentacles ending in round paddles set with low-power repulsor rays. It had gone beyond octopoid and was verging on hydroid. Tony was lying on the floor, reaching up inside it.

Natasha said, "Stark, this has gone on long enough. Put on your big-girl panties and come to the party."

"No," Tony replied. 

"I can make you."

"I can dump all the SI publicity work off on Pepper. She's better at it than I am, anyway. And she would never, ever shirk her responsibilities. You know, skive off and go on dates with her girlfriend. Her hot, hot girlfriend."

Natasha considered. "That's blackmail, Stark." She sounded mildly admiring.

"Yeah."

 

Natasha returned to the others, Tonyless. "It's not really my job. It's not as if I'm the team leader of the Avengers." 

Everyone looked at Steve. Steve put down the Yahtzee dice. "Ok, if I'm not back in an hour, send out a search party." He went to the kitchen, poured a mug of coffee, and reheated a maple bar in the microwave, ten seconds in a damp paper towel. He put the doughnut on a saucer on top of the coffee and went down to Tony's lab.

"Coffee," he said as he entered. He put the mug down on the nearest empty space, and then amused himself by grabbing holos and playing basketball with them. After the fourth *DING DING DING* as he made a basket, Tony emerged from the thing he was creating.

"Oh, good, you're the last. The parade was getting to be a nuisance." Tony went over to the coffee and prodded the maple bar before he began eating it.

"Yep," Steve said. "I thought I'd bring the party to you."

"Humph," Tony said around a mouthful of donut, washed down with coffee. "Really, you guys don't need to bother. I don't feel like partying, no big deal."

"Uh huh," Steve said. "What are you making?"

Tony grinned. "Something really awesome. It's a riff off my auto-armoring equipment, actually. It's a combination massager and backscratcher with infra-red heating for deep tissue stimulation."

"Huh." Steve went over to the machine and studied it from all angles. "That might be really great after a hard workout."

"Give it a try."

"It's not that I don't trust you, Tony, it's... well... you were kinda annoyed at us when you built it..."

Tony grinned. "I'll try it with you. It's intended for multiple users."

Steve raised his eyebrows. "I don't want to know why, do I?"

"Probably not." Tony finished his coffee and stepped close to the machine and pressed the big red DO NOT PRESS button. Tentacles swept out and began running over his body. Tony closed his eyes and said, "Ahhhh..."

Steve shrugged and moved next to Tony. "Oh, that's good! Yeah, Tony, that's nice."

 

Back in the living room, Clint said, "Steve's been down there a while."

"I'm sure he's fine," Natasha said. "Even though they do argue."

"Quite a lot," Bruce said. He frowned.

"The Man of Iron would never harm a teammate," Thor said. "Intentionally."

"We should go and look?" Bruce asked.

"No, we definitely should not," Clint replied. "I'm sure Steve can handle Tony."

There followed a long moment of uneasy silence. Bruce cleared his throat. "Jarvis, can you tell us what's going on in Tony's lab?"

"I regret that the visual monitoring system has been inoperative since the unfortunate incident with the stealth glider, however audio is intact."

"Fine, give us that," Bruce said.

Steve's voice filled the living room, "Ahhhhh, oh, god, yes, yes, Tony, that's fantastic."

Bruce snapped his fingers and held out his hand. Clint sighed and paid him ten dollars.


End file.
